Nice? No, You're An Ass
by Darksabre35
Summary: In Chapter 35 of 'A Destiny Altered,' Kyp Durron meets Kadra Bres, but we never see HOW they met. This is my INITIAL take on how the two met. Basically a massive snarkfest, since Kyp can be arrogant and Kadra can be bitchy. NOTICE: This story will NOT be removed, but is no longer considered 'canon.' A COMPLETELY revamped and reworked version will be posted sometime in the future.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: While planning the sequel to 'Rendezvous Aboard the Selonia', I realized I was beginning to get ahead of myself, writing the course of Kyp and Kadra's relationship without first explaining how they met! In Chapter 35 of 'A Destiny Altered' by An Origami Fish, we read that Kadra was 'chatting up Kyp Durron' but we never see exactly _how _they met or how their conversation got started. If you've read my fic 'Rendezvous', you know how Kyp and Kadra like to push each other's buttons. I thought it made sense to assume their push-and-pull dynamic started with their very first conversation... thus, "Nice? No, You're an Ass," was born.

Disclaimer: If I owned _Star Wars_, I wouldn't be putting a disclaimer. Kadra Bres belongs to An Origami Fish, borrowed with permission. Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, and Jana's dialogue is taken verbatim from Chapter 35 of A Destiny Altered, located at this URL: s/7551001/35/A-Destiny-Altered

* * *

"This is torture," I muttered to myself.

Shielding my eyes with my hand, I looked out across the baking-hot desert of Tatooine and wondered for the _nth_ time since disembarking from my shuttle half an hour earlier what had made Jedi Knight Anakin Solo think Tatooine was a good base for a campaign. Now don't get me wrong; my parents were Rebels and I understand the significance of this rock and all, but I _really_ wished he could have chosen a place that wasn't _so_ _kriffing_ _hot_.

The extremely unattractive sand plains shimmered with heat as I looked out across their vastness, making me dizzy, and I cursed naval propriety as I felt a drop of sweat slide down the back of my neck. My status as a Colonel and commander of a sizable taskforce naturally required me, _as per_ _usual_, to don a formal, neck-to-toes uniform, one that was currently baking me like a ryshcate in this heat. Wearing my uniform wasn't a big deal in a climate-controlled starship, but it became a fabric torture device in Tatooine's torrid temperatures. My armpits were beginning to dampen and my hairline was moist - and, by the way, sweating _really_ isn't good for elaborate hairstyles. Or making a general good impression.

I actually found it extremely ironic that Tatooine was the base of a full-fledged, completely legitimate, government-sanctioned navy campaign. A couple of years ago I never would have imagined little old Tatooine would ever rise to such...prominence. To me, it was a place where the more disreputable denizens of the galaxy gathered and therefore a place to avoid, and a setting for the extremely juvenile _The Adventures of Luke Skywalker _holodrama my youngest sister Alina was obsessed with. In a strange twist of fate, Tatooine had become a refuge for those who fled from Hutt Space after the Yuuzhan Vong took it near the beginning of the war. In a move that was part insanity, in my opinion, and part twisted poetic justice, Tatooine had been chosen as the base of a venture to reclaim Hutt Space, and one that I happened to be...helping with. _  
_

Now, I don't like heat, but you can be sure that I'll take any chance I get to kick the Vong's asses, provided that the odds are good. Retaking Hutt Space would be one more step towards winning the war against the psychopathic scarheads, so despite my dislike of the unholy temperatures, I was ready to be 100% behind this venture. Notice that I said 'ready to be 100% behind', not '100% behind'. I didn't yet know the particulars of how this...project was going to be handled, and the Jedi were going to have to come up with some solid plans before I'd be convinced this whole thing didn't have a large chance of going to hell in a handbasket.

_Enough brooding,_ I told myself. There was most certainly a place for thinking, but I doubted now was that time. Right now, I felt a dire need for something to _happen_. Like, say, a nice meeting where all the big guns got together and I could get some intimation of what the Jedi had planned. Being a high-ranking officer has spoiled me as far as information and intel goes; I don't like being out of the loop. I need to know the whole picture so I can start planning how to get the job done (in this case, kick the Vong's asses) with maximum efficiency and the fewest casualties possible.

I spun on my heel and took one step only to find myself nearly walking into a very solid, very male chest.

I caught myself just in time, contorting my body and stepping to the side before I could step on his toes. _Thank the Force_ for all those years of dancing; flexibility came in handy at the most unexpected times. I was also thankful I wasn't wearing heels as per usual – if I had, I'd never have been able to manage the maneuver in the soft sand. Instead, I'd have landed on my butt on the ground or in the guy's arms, if he was the polite type and chivalrous enough to catch me. Both outcomes would have been highly embarrassing; the former would have permanently damaged my image around here, and the latter would have dealt a big blow to my feminine pride.

Composing myself, I looked up to find a very attractive human guy with tanned skin, shoulder-length black hair, and dark eyes looking back at me with a little too much mocking amusement for my taste.

It took a moment for me to recognize the stud I had nearly run into, but once I did, it took all I had not to take an involuntary step back.

Kyp Durron.

Kyp freaking Durron, in the flesh.

Now, I wouldn't say I was nervous, but it's not every day you nearly run into the Jedi who destroyed an entire planet as a teenager and was allowed to live to tell the story. More importantly, I wanted to know how he had ended up right behind me, in what I considered to be my personal space. Maybe I was paranoid, but I didn't exactly get to where I am today by being _trusting_.

But I didn't get to where I am now by freaking out at every unusual occurrence, either, so I just crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me, sir, do you have any concept of personal space?"

"Personal space?" Kyp drawled. His voice was deep, with a velvety edge. "I was wondering if you knew about that. The way you were moving, I thought you wanted to walk into me."

_Great, arrogance at its finest. Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like this Jedi very much? _I decided not to whip out my ever - ready snark gun quite yet though; I'd go for _relatively_ reasonable first. "Why would I want to walk into you?"

Kyp shrugged. "Search me. You tell me why."

"Tell you why?" _Good Force_, this guy was a smartass. Which actually wasn't all that bad; _I'm_ a smartass too and his words, in my book, legitimized a _little_ comeback."Well, you apparently decided it would be fun to invade my personal space, and I was turning around, _ergo_…." I made an air ellipsis with my hand. "It's too bad I moved so fast; maybe I should've run into you for your rudeness. That would've been a fair trade, I think." Okay, that was pushing it, but I felt kind of justified giving this particular Jedi the sharper side of my tongue...and being snarky made me feel a little more...powerful, I guess.

"Fair trade?" Kyp raised one eyebrow, and as I stared into his eyes I noticed he'd been blessed with long eyelashes some girls would have killed for. My older sister Maiah swore it was one of the cosmic rules of the universe: Boys got the best eyelashes. When you thought about it, it actually made sense. There was, after all, a reason girls used mascara and boys didn't. "Not quite. If you hadn't moved so fast, you'd have landed on your backside in the sand. And I would've been fine."

Whoops, he had a point there. _Kadra, minus one_. But it _was_ rude to remark about the...butt of a woman whose name you didn't even know, so I decided to try the politeness argument. "I see someone who failed their etiquette course," I said coolly. I refrained, of course, from telling him that I would be more than willing to give him one of Kadra's Krazy Krash Kourses – specifically the one in manners. Not to be arrogant, but my Krash Kourses have been amazingly effective on men in the past, _especially_ when delivered with the application of...boot heels (preferably stilettos) to the groin.

Kyp shrugged and smirked. "On the contrary, I had an A+ average in my etiquette course..."

"Nice try," I said. "Either you seduced your teacher into giving you A's when you got D's, or you miraculously forgot everything you learned, or you just don't care to put your lessons into practice. 'You'd have landed on your backside'? Really? You don't even know my name." I was taking a gamble with the last sentence; being a Jedi and a well-connected one he probably knew all about the Colonel who was bringing a taskforce from Garm Bel Iblis' independent navy to aid the GA in reclaiming Hutt Space. I could have said "we haven't been formally introduced" but that would be kind of redundant since we'd already...begun a conversation, of sorts.

"Oh," Kyp said, affecting a contrite expression. "My sincerest apologies." He extended his hand. "I'm Jedi Master Kyp Durron. Pleasure to meet you, Colonel….?"

I let him keep his hand extended just a _bit_ longer than was polite before I clasped it. His fingers were warm but dry, his fingertips and palms callused, a sharp contrast to my own manicured hands. "Pleasure to meet you,_ Master_ Durron," I said, and smirked inwardly as he scowled at my sarcastic emphasis, "I'm Colonel Kadra Bres."

"Colonel Kadra Bres?" Kyp dropped my hand, his brows rising. He gave me a quick once-over, eyes skimming from the elaborate braided bun on top of my head down to my flat-soled combat boots. Thankfully his gaze didn't linger anywhere where it shouldn't have, but I got the distinct impression he was sizing me up. "So _you're_ the Colonel General Bel Iblis sent over, right?"

I stiffened. He acted as if there was something wrong with me or something. I perched my hands on the sides of my utility belt."You have a problem with that?"

"Nope," Kyp said flippantly. "Just expected you to be…older." He gave me a half-smirk.

Unknown to him, there are few ways more efficient to flip my bitch switch than implying that I'm too young for my job. Jedi or not, Master Durron would find about 55 kilograms of angry Kadra Bres on his hands is he went down that route, which is, trust me, not something he would want to deal with. I crossed my arms, shooting him one of my 'so sweet it could _kill_ you' smiles. "My taskforce and I can come back in a few years if you like," I purred, injecting just a little bit of venom into my voice.

Wisely, Kyp put his hands up. "Forgive me. To imply anything about you, I did not mean to do."

_Oh, merciful FORCE._ An arrogant Jedi master with a criminal record and a _horrible_ sense of humor. Yoda jokes became, in my opinion, outdated around the time of the Great Jedi Purge. Why do I always manage to meet the nutjobs and the jackasses first? "You just implied I'm immature. How can you be so arrogant and glib as to use a fracking Yoda joke as an apology?"

Kyp rolled his eyes. "How can you be so brave as to call _me_ arrogant and glib?"

I laughed half-sultrily, half-dangerously, taking a step toward him. "Careful about threatening me, Master Durron. You _know_ what they say about angering redheads. I would have thought Master Jade Skywalker would have taught you _all that._"

To my surprise, Kyp's attractive face immediately contorted into a fierce scowl. "Can we please leave Mara out of this conversation?"

"Why?" I tipped my head to one side. "She's nice, from what I've seen on the HoloNet…"

"Mara? Nice?" Kyp asked incredulously. "No…more like feisty."

"Redheads are generally feisty," I said with a shrug. "Don't worry, I won't tell Master Skywalker you've been blackmailing his wife."

"Blackmailing?" Kyp asked, almost innocently. "I wasn't blackmailing Mara. Just…_correcting_ your adjectives."

"It's blackmail. But it's okay, just means I have a little something to use against you if you decide to be rude to me again." The moment the words left my mouth I knew I'd made a mistake, as an almost evilly devious look crossed Kyp's face. This, after all, WAS a Jedi I was dealing with…and one who liked to be something of an ass.

"Don't use the threat of blackmail on me, Colonel," Kyp said arrogantly. "Whatever you can do,_ I_ can do a thousand times worse. I can make everyone here know you collect Barbie dolls in under an hour if I want them to."

Anger rippled in the pit of my stomach, and for the second time I fought the urge to step away from Kyp. The rumors of Jedi being able to read minds just _might_ be true to some extent…how else would Kyp know that I _used_ to collect Barbie dolls? But it seemed that assumption wasn't quite right, as Kyp's eyes widened slightly. There was unmistakable incredulity in his voice as he asked: "You mean…you _do_ collect Barbie dolls?"

I felt my face grow burning hot, and I cast a quick glance around. For some reason, though, everyone seemed to be ignoring us, though they _could_ have been listening intently and pretending not to be."No, I do not!" I snapped at Kyp, still annoyed with him for guessing, or rather rooting out one of my most embarrassing pieces of personal trivia. I narrowed my eyes and gave him the best suspicious glare I could manage. "Are you reading my mind?"

"No." I wanted to think Kyp was telling the truth, but the sparkles in his eyes and the self-satisfied smirk curling the corners of his mouth belied his assertion. "Jedi can't mind-read…although we can get a general 'vibe'…"

"Well, turn the vibe-reader off!" I snapped in a low tone, minddful of potential eavesdroppers. Who the _kriff_ did he think he was to waltz into my emotions and read them as he pleased?

Kyp tapped the side of his head with a finger. "First, it's not a 'vibe-reader'" – he made air quotes with his fingers "it's _empathy_. Second, It doesn't work quite that way; you can't just flip a mental switch and turn it off."

"Stay out of my head," I insisted in a dangerous voice. "I _swear_ to the Force, if you try _anything_, I am going to be screaming 'mind rapist' at the top of my lungs and not even your fancy glowstick sword will be able to save you."

To my shock, agony and guilt flashed across Kyp's eyes. It was so fast that I almost didn't catch it, and for a moment afterward I thought I might have made it up, but no.

But it was gone in an instant and then Kyp was back to his smirking, arrogant self. "I'm not a mind rapist. I'm more the knight in shining armor type."

I laughed scornfully. Kyp was a stud, I'd give him that, like most 'knight in shining armor' characters were. Polite and chivalrous, though? Not so much. "Knight in shining armor, my a - ship," I said, then, recalling my fairy tales, an idea occurred to me. "So," I said, smirking, "If a krayt dragon showed up here out of nowhere, would you throw yourself in front of it for me?"

"I'd throw myself in front of a krayt dragon for a fair lady," Kyp said gallantly. "You don't qualify."

"_What_?"

Kyp gestured vaguely towards me. "Knights in shining armor rescue _fair_ ladies, not _tanned_ ladies."

_Cretin. _If I ever needed proof that _some _guys never grow up, there I had it. Kyp was in his_ thirties, _but he was still childish enough to make jokes as stupid as the one he'd just made. Kyp had certainly seemed very...rational and polite whenever he appeared on broadcasted High Council meetings, if a bit of a troublemaker. In real life...unless something about _me_ ticked him off, he was kind of a smartypants.

"Lucky thing I could probably kick a krayt dragon's ass without your help, then," I said, starting to turn away. I'd had enough of this awkward conversation with this particular Jedi Master. How in the galaxy I manage to get into _weird_ conversations during _awkward_ times with the most _annoying_ people remains beyond me. You would've thought I'd leave that tendency behind when I was around, oh, fifteen. But here I was, all of twenty-three and _still_ parleying with morons.

"Really?" Kyp asked behind me. "Have you ever seen a krayt dragon in real life? I hate to scare you, but there was a Vong-modified krayt dragon running around here a little while ago," Kyp shoved his hands in his pockets and grimaced. "Gave Anakin Solo a run for his money, I'm afraid."

Great, now Kyp was trying to scare me. Unfortunately for him, this particular tactic wasn't going to work. "No, I've never seen a krayt dragon before. They generally don't appear in the wider galaxy except in books and in _really_ bad movies. Only this hot space rock seems to have any specimens of that particular species of fauna."

Kyp chuckled. "You don't like Tatooine."

"Thank you, Captain, or rather, _Master_ Obvious. I don't like Tatooine. You can go use _that_ as blackmail, along with my _imaginary_ Barbie collection. Where did the Vong-modified krayt dragon go?"

"Solo let it run out into the desert, but it could come back," Kyp was obviously enjoying telling me this.

"I hope it does," I said.

That threw him for a little loop. Kyp blinked. "Why?"

"Maybe I want to see how it reacts to the smell of fresh Kyp Durron."

Kyp tsked. "Getting violent now, are we, Colonel? Just when we were starting to have a nice conversation too. Are you always this insulting? I had almost begun to hope you were one of the milder types of redheads..."

Nice conversation? Well, Kyp could shove that up his rear. "Get this, Master Durron. There are _no_ mild redheads, and if there were, well, I wouldn't be one of them. And as for being insulting…that's my style. Yours too, for that matter, though I have a _feeling_ you've gone easy on me in the interest of making sure I don't take my taskforce back to Ryloth and leave a whole lot of retribution crashing down on your head. Do you even realize how ridiculous this conversation has become?"

"Maybe I'm just being nice."

I laughed derisively. _Nice? No, you're an ass._ "You aren't nice. You're not the 'knight in shining armor'; you're the…" I paused for a moment, trying to find a suitable nickname that would not be _too_ insulting, "…Snarker in Goth Robes."

"Snarker in Goth Robes?" Kyp smirked. "That's the _best_ you can come up with?"

I smiled evilly, my mind whirling with countless sharp, biting insults in a variety of languages, when there was a sudden bustle around us. Immediately all thoughts of insulting the annoying Jedi Master fled from my mind, replaced by cool focus as...

...Jedi Knights Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin Solo came into view, accompanied by a slender woman whose exquisite features and elegant uniform proclaimed she was Hapan.

Now, I'm not all that easily impressed, and my first instinct when meeting famous people is to evaluate them to see if their real-life selves are anything like their in-front-of-the-camera selves. As has been proven since the foundation of the galaxy, a person's on-screen personality can be wildly different from their real-life personality. It's true for me-true for just about everyone.

All the same, it was kind of interesting to see the famous Force-powerful siblings who had recently become the most prominent HoloNet celebrities and whose actions had had massive impacts on the course of the war. As I watched and listened, I caught the wind of their conversation.

"Oh, by the way, this is Jana," Jacen said, turning to his siblings and motioning towards the Hapan woman trailing behind him somewhat timidly, in my opinion. "She's actually helped me and Tenel Ka out a lot over the week. She somehow managed to cram as much fun as possible in that brief period of time."

_Fun_? I thought. What fun, and over what week? I'm very imaginative, and Knight Solo had mentioned 'fun' and 'week' and 'Tenel Ka' all in two sentences. Had Jedi Solo been doing some _innocent_ chilling with the Queen of Hapes for a week? Or had they been engaged in more..._sordid_ activities? I would probably never know, but speculation was enough for me. I've learned over the years that there _are_ some things better left unknown. With that thought, I brought my attention back to the unfolding conversation.

"...for the Queen Mother's sake, not yours," Jana was saying. "For one not used to the burdens of the crown, it looked as though she needed a break. Though I still do not know why she had me come with you and not one of the military officers."

Hmmm...I could actually sympathize with the Queen Mother. She had been crowned queen of _sixty-three _star systems at _eighteen_ - kind of a heavy burden for a teenager. I still remember how hard it was for me initially when General Bel Iblis first started seriously increasing the responsibility he placed on me. Of course, Tenel Ka Djo was a Jedi, and that gave her some advantages, but...still. Young was...young, midichlorians or no.

"Impressed?" Kyp's husky voice brought me out of my reverie, and I turned to see him standing to my left.

I raised an eyebrow. "No." Nope, I wasn't a bit impressed by the Jedi Royal Family. Well, maybe I was...just a _little_ bit. It _is _kind of a big thing to meet the Solos, but I wasn't going to let their Jedi celebrity status get to me. I had already had a crash course in dealing with arrogant Jedi, courtesy Jedi Master Kyp Durron.

"No? You're a terrible liar-" Kyp stopped abruptly as something seemed to catch his attention, and I turned back towards the Solos just in time to hear Jacen say to Jana, "...use the few ships we have."

"Few ships?" Kyp called out owards them, and I cursed him mentally as all three Solos turned towards him as one. "We have close to three dozen capital ships, five wings of fighters, and enough supplies to keep them all going for at least three months!"

Almost immediately all the Solos' gazes turned to me, but fortunately I had already slapped my cold, bored 'navy face' into place. I had learned the evils of parading your emotions on your face when you are at a disadvantage a _long_ time ago. I inclined my head slightly, received polite nods in return, and breathed a mental sign of relief as they turned away again.

"Don't worry," Kyp leaned toward me, smiling slyly. "They're nice."

I did _not _like the look on Kyp's face - it was the look of someone who has discovered a fatal weakness in another and plans to exploit it. I hate many things, but one of my biggest pet peeves is people finding out one of my weaknesses before I'm ready to reveal it, which is, by the way, usually never. And with the Jedi emotion-sensing thing...I wasn't happy at all. Were all my private thoughts and doubts going to be public property now? I narrowed my eyes at Kyp. "More's the pity," I said. "I'm not _nice_."

"Yeah, I kind of got that impression."

I nearly rolled my eyes. _More insults._ I decided then that I'd had enough. I needed time alone to mull over my first meeting with a Jedi. A large part of me wanted to leave with the snarkiest comment I could muster, but my diplomatic _alter ego_ demanded something polite. "It has been a pleasure conversing with you, Master Durron," I said politely. "If you will excuse me, I have duties to attend to." Of course, both statements were lies. It had _not_ been a pleasurable conversation - a weird but...stimulating one. I had no 'duties' in that sense - except a duty to myself.

If Kyp's Jedi lie-detector picked up on my deception, which I'm sure it did, he didn't show it. With a charming smile, he tipped an imaginary hat. "It's been a pleasure, Colonel."

The muscles at the corners of my mouth begged to twitch at his gesture, but I kept them still. "The pleasure was all mine."

I turned and walked away, feeling Kyp's gaze on my back. _The campaign hasn't even begun and the weirdness has already commenced, _I thought. If my instincts were right, the percent chance of things getting significantly weirder as time went on was at least 500%.

At the very least, my taskforce and I was in for one wild ride.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave me a review if you are so inclined.:D Constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated.

Kudos to anyone who catches the _Vampire Diaries_ and _Strange Angels_ quotes!


	2. NOTICE

Hey everybody!

This is just an author's note, so I'll try to keep this brief. After reading some very helpful constructive criticism from my reviewers and conducting some literary criticism of my own (including comparing this to my other fic 'Rendezvous Aboard the Selonia'), I came to the conclusion that this story is really not my best piece of writing and needs to be completely reworked. Kyp and Kadra both sounded more like catty high-school teenagers than the adults that they are in this, and some parts of this fic actually almost contradicted some things I had established in 'Rendezvous.' I had actually been initially hesitant to post this, and turns out I probably should have listened to my gut!

In any case, I'm going to be doing a complete overhaul of this story, one so big that the final product actually will NOT look anything like the initial version. It will be written in third-person, and circumstances and dialogue will be completely different. A few lines from the initial version may make it into the final product, but that's still very much up in the air.

However, I will NOT be taking down this story; it was fun to write and I received some amazing reviews (a zillion thanks to my reviewers; you guys are great!:D). Maybe I was in a bitchy mood when I was writing it and my feelings flowed into my characters…in fact, I'm 95% sure that's what happened. This story will remain on the site, but it will no longer be considered 'canon.'

Thanks everyone,

Sabre


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